Churchill's Triumph Read Online Free PDF Page A

last.
    “I think we all are,” Sarah replied. “He looks so desperately ill.”
    “He is also desperately misguided. Infirmity and imprudence. The combination could be calamitous. You know, I asked him if we might share the journey to Yalta. He declined. Said he needed to rest. He won’t talk to me, Mule. Has pushed me aside.”
    “He couldn’t do that. You’re mistaken.”
    “I am most certain of it.”
    “Then why?”
    “Because he thinks he knows better. Trusts Stalin. Believes we may all live together in harmony once the slaughter is over. He’s one of those most dangerous of men, Mule, an idealist. Thinks he can win over Stalin simply by the force of his own personality.”
    “Don’t you?”
    “Only if I’ve got a bloody grenade in my pocket.”
    “But you’ve said such nice things about Marshal Stalin.”
    “And I shall continue to do so. It’s called diplomacy, and it is filled with terminological inexactitudes.”
    “Which means?”
    He sighed, as though already exhausted. “In a few hours’ time I shall embrace the Marshal warmly and he, just as warmly, will embrace me. Doesn’t mean we like each other. Nearly thirty years ago I sent an army to Russia with the intention of crushing the Bolshevik infant in its cradle. I failed. Stalin hasn’t forgotten that. Neither have I.”
    Ahead, they could see the terrain changing, rising into mountains. On both sides of the road were strewn the remnants of broken tanks and rusting military equipment, and as they passed through village after desolated village, not a single house appeared to be intact. They could see no livestock, no signs of preparation for the coming spring, only hungry eyes peering from the darkness of empty windows. This was the Crimea, still gripped in a German winter.
    As the hours rolled and bumped past they tried to entertain themselves by reading aloud extracts from Byron and munching dry ham sandwiches, which they washed down with a little brandy. He always brought sandwiches with him to Russia; in this place you never knew what to expect. Then the brandy got the better of the old man’s constitution and he leaned forward to rattle at the partition window separating him from the driver and armed guard seated in front. “Stop the car,” Churchill ordered.
    The guard shook his head, indicating that they should continue. A shouting match quickly developed that wasn’t resolved until Churchill grabbed the handle of the door and started to open it as though to jump out. “I need a leak, you fool,” he shouted, as the car drew over. “Just wait till you’re my age and they start bouncing your bladder over these bloody roads!”
    As he stepped from the car he found himself in yet another graveyard of charred and tumbling walls. It was still snowing and the hamlet appeared deserted except for a couple of nervous dogs that barked from a safe distance. He could taste the air: it was still thick with brick dust, and there was the sense of something sweetly sour and rotted about this place, as though someone had taken the lid off an old dustbin. It was a smell he had carried with him from the trenches of the last war.
    It wasn’t until Churchill had finished his business out of view of the car and was buttoning himself up that he saw two small children. A brother and sister, he guessed, the eldest no more than nine, rake-thin, with harshly cropped hair to ward off infestation and a threadbare horsehair blanket that was their only means of protection. Tears marked the girl’s cheeks but she made no sound. Their eyes spoke of horrors and their skin was so filthy it was impossible to know where bruises smudged into old grime. Slowly, from beneath the blanket, the boy stretched out a hand and muttered a few words that Churchill did not understand.
    “My poor lambs,” Churchill whispered. He began feverishly searching his pockets—for what he wasn’t certain, as he never carried any money—and while he fumbled the blanket fell from